


Welcome to Gehenna. Can I Take Your Order?

by loveortoxicradiation



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Azazel's Special Children, F/F, Trans Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-21 16:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2474483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveortoxicradiation/pseuds/loveortoxicradiation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg just met Cas, but she has the feeling she’s going to die for her. It’s in the the little details, like the way she doesn’t hate Cas completely, and the steady line of things that keep trying to kill them. It’s how, horror show or not, the night’s the best she can remember.</p><p>half fast food au, half ‘all hell breaks loose.’ written for the megcas big bang 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Twisted Screw

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: abuse, incest, implied csa, mental health issues, suicidal ideation
> 
> (also -- meg and cas share the same great-grandfather.)

Singer Auto: her home away from home. Every other week, something new was off with Grampa Alastair's vintage (of the rusted through variety) BMW, and so, every other week, it was Meg's responsibility to take the bloody thing to the auto shop.

No one could get the man a new car. That was absurd, an act even more unthinkable than letting him actually drive, Mister Glaucoma with a side of Mild Dementia. He couldn't operate the vehicle, but it'd be heartless not to fix it; it was one of the last joys in his life, along with whatever projects he had going on in his shed. (No one asked. He didn’t tell. )

Did bring up the question of how things kept going wrong with it, though.

It was a mystery, but not one that Meg cared enough to solve. It didn’t matter in the end. Even if she found a way to cut off the head of the Pop Pop Problem, another would grow into its place; no matter how fast the problems bred, or what the particulars were, if there was a mess, it was up to Meg to clean it up. The benefit of being the oldest child, supposedly.

She wasn’t actually the oldest.

Everything worked out in the end, though. It wasn’t a benefit.

(Should’ve signed up for the military, like Abaddon. For years, Meg thought that her cousin was a moron, but as it turned out, she -- well, she was still a moron. One who managed to make a better call than Meg did, and escaped Lawrence. The shame burned.)

For those reasons, and more, including God’s hatred of Meg, specifically, as well as her hatred of herself, she was once again in her least favourite place on the planet, waiting for the interaction she dreaded even more than running the register on BOGO Fries-days.

There wasn’t a single thing to appreciate about Singer Auto.

If somebody held her at gunpoint over it, she might say the dinky chairs didn’t break under her ass, or that the classic rock station had a clear idea of what their audience was like, playing the same twenty-odd songs in rotation, or, maybe, that she liked having to shake the vending machine to get her snacks, because it broke up the tedium of waiting around.

She might even admit that Bobby Singer himself seemed like an alright human being, if she had to.

But there was no power on this Earth that could make her say anything pleasant about Dean Winchester. She’d rather be shot.

Was he a decent guy? Probably. Maybe. Someone, with enough lack of self-respect and/or situational awareness, might think that he was an alright guy. Possibly. Meg knew better. As she saw it, anyone would hate him, if they had to put up with him the way she had to.

It wasn’t anything he did, or said. That was the problem in a nutshell.

Fucker gave her the silent treatment. Never said a word to her, as if they were in some Regency-era production, and he was a maiden with no better option to tell her how deeply she had wronged him. On good days, he might nod when she walked in the door.

Generally, though, he didn’t.

Never, not once, did he so much as give her a single 'good afternoon', and, honestly, she didn’t begrudge him for that, too much. She hated plastering fake smiles for the customers. She daydreamed too often of their ‘the customer is always right’ heads exploding for her to hold a lack of forced friendliness against him.

If he was simply a surly cuss, she could’ve deal with it.

If he needed to lay out options, he told Meg’s grandfather, the man who couldn’t reliably confirm which century it was. He called over her shoulder to thank the man, when Meg paid the bill. Sometimes, Dean brought back food from his lunch break, and shared with Alastair, the biggest, brightest, fakest smile on his face, while the geriatric rambled on about the war, or how all the children except Abaddon disappointed him, or his dear friend, Luc, some guy he lost contact with half a century ago.

He had infinitely more patience for Meg’s grandfather than she did. And yet, he couldn’t muster so much as a basic acknowledgement of her existence? Not classy.

It wasn’t as if she even knew why he gave her the cold shoulder. She’d never met him before.

There weren’t many facts at her disposal, to form a hypothesis. Her best guess was that they might’ve gone to the same high school. Or, he knew somebody who knew somebody who told him rumours about her. Lawrence wasn't that big a town, especially in certain circles.

She never saw him at Gehenna, but he seemed to like burgers. Maybe he talked to Ellsworth, or Guy, and they told him what a unreasonable harpy she was, without the context of how much they deserved to be yelled at. Maybe he was pals with one of her exes. Didn’t Kevin used to tell people ‘dude, she’s literally Satan’?

Whatever the reason was, he could keep his opinion of her. She just wanted him to show some basic goddamn manners. But, clearly, he couldn’t be civil. It was that forward-minded Kansas thinking in action.

Interrupting her thoughts, the door swung open, and the bow-legged mechanic sauntered through, cleaning the oil from his hands. "All it needed was an oil change, Mister Nixon," he said, cheery.

Meg took her cue, and kept the roll of her eyes to her imagination. Because, unlike other people, she wasn’t raised in a barn. (Seriously, someone should give her a medal for patience.)

As she handed over the check from her wallet, the strangest thing happened. A miracle.

"There's cheaper ways to flirt than draining an old man's bank account, lady.” Dean shrugged one shoulder, the freckles over his nose scrunching. “You should treat your grandfather better.”

He acknowledged her.

Thanks, God. Couldn’t cure cancer, or smite some pedophiles. Instead, the wefts of fate were rearranged for Dean still-a-sack-of-shit Winchester to move up from ignoring her to mouthing off.

She was such an idiot for thinking it was a problem that he never talked to her. Sure, it was infuriating, but her past self should have known that it could be worse. Always, it gets worse.

Before had been a golden era.

Now, her teeth clicked together as she slammed her jaw shut. She had to close her eyes and count, to keep her expression neutral, and focus, or else she was going to rip the Blue Steel right off his worthless, jackass face, and as much as she wanted to do exactly that, she couldn’t. She had an image of superiority to maintain.

She could talk to people she hated with civility. She wasn’t Dean.

"These visits are out of my own pocket,” she said, every bit as calm as she didn’t feel. She folded her arms, to hold herself still, and bared her teeth. “Besides, if I were flirting? You'd know. Never saw the point in subtlety."

_Some people have this neat thing called self-control. You should try it, sometime._

"Yeah, why waste time beating around the bush? Never understood it, either. See, I’d believe you, if it weren’t for the fact I just repaired cut brakes. That’s not some accident.”

“So, instead, you think I did it? Because I’m going to take the car of the man I’m trying to kill to the same place every week?”

“Good alibi, ain’t it?” Dean snapped, defensive.

Thankfully, before she truly let the extent of her disbelief sail, before she shattered her illusion of calm, the door jingled once again, which was a bit of a mundane miracle unto itself. Meg never saw other customers, either because they knew to keep away during her visits or, more likely, they knew to keep away during Dean’s shifts.

Turned out, he didn’t like this customer, either. His face flatlined and his shoulders shot up.

"Cas," he croaked. "What are you doing here? What'd I say about popping up unannounced?"

Splendid. Cas, was it? They needed to be friends, stat. Anyone who made Dean Winchester miserable was someone she wanted to get to know. Meg tucked her hair behind her ear, and drawled out a little "Hello, stranger," at Tall, Dark, and Snappily Saying That She Called The Shop Already, who stared at her as if she were an ingredients list on a sack of potatoes.

“Hello,” she said, slow and gravelly. Molasses flowing down a rock quarry.

She liked Cas already. It was all in the way Dean's face turned atomic red watching the two of them, the slow, pained drag of his hand over his face as he stared up to the heavens. It was the exasperation in his voice when he said, "Leave already, would you?", even though she was fairly certain that was addressed to her, not the newcomer.

"Oh, but Dean-o," she crooned, folding her hands together, "I'm dying to get to know more of the behind the scenes of your life. It's why I'm here, isn't it? My unwavering, borderline-stalkerish feelings for you, the bigwig auto mechanic??"

She leant into his space, her eyes as dewy as she could muster. All the eyelash fluttering gave her a bit of a headache, but, it was worth it for his reaction of pure disgust. Not so fast with the smart mouth, now, are you, Dean?

Cas watched them from the doorway, impassive. She still had the look of an explorer in some godforsaken steppe, as if the local traditions were beyond her understanding of social order, or, as if the waiting area were bogged down with hidden landmines. Meg didn’t presume to know which was going on inside her noggin. She looked like a lights on, nobody home type.

With a defeated sigh, Dean slunk back through the door to the car bay. Cas followed.

It wasn’t a good day at the mechanic, but, at least it was different. Meg couldn’t have asked for better.

-

The sad thing was, she couldn’t even rate the encounter on the first 50 of her Top 100 most incomprehensible mornings. Crazy followed her like goldfish poop.

For one reason or another, when God made her, he chose something artsier than giving her a bum leg or ass cancer. No, for some reason or another, he chose to go a little meta, and said to himself: why not make this child a magnet for the stupidest shit?

Wherever there's an eccentric with a superiority complex, there'll be a Meg. Whenever some soccer mom gets physical over ordering a cheeseless cheeseburger, it'll be Meg's shift. No arbitrary, awful circumstance should ever be un-Meg'd.

It started when she was six, when her birth family's house burned down. The only reason she survived was that an entrepreneur from halfway across the country had just so happened to notice smoke billowing while he was driving through Andover, lost, looking for his hotel. He found her, passed out underneath the debris, before the fire trucks had so much as pulled out on to the scene, before the neighbors even noticed anything was wrong. It was a the sort of scenario people call out for being unrealistic, in movies. A one-in-a-million chance.

That was the beginning. Over the next eighteen years, things got weirder.

-

"That boy shouldn't talk to you like that. Should've trussed him up, hung him from the ceiling."

"If only," she sighed, dreamily.

Alastair thumped the dashboard. "No 'if only.' If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

"Sadly, torture's illegal."

"The law's just a panty-waisted fop. Law's nothing to stop you. Bring him to the shed, we can show him what's what."

"Okay, Pop Pop. We'll do that."

-

Next point on the itinerary: family dinner. This week, it was at her father’s house.

All she wanted was to sneak through the kitchen so she could hide in her brother’s room until everyone sat at the table. If the person she was trying to avoid hadn’t been in the kitchen, she might’ve succeeded. But, naturally, he was right next to the door she entered, at the periphery of the conversation between his brothers-in-law.

(Cain was enthusiastically telling Papa about bean sprouts, or whatever. Some new adventure in the land of the hippie dippie.)

Familiar, stubby fingers curled over her hips; she couldn’t hotfoot it without making a scene. If she did, she knew she’d get nothing but vague, soulful stares from the one, and agita from the other two. She’d be even more miserable than withstanding whatever the pig had to say.

As always, she had to deal with Crowley on her own.

(“You’re an al-Shaitan, Meg,” her father told her vaguely, once. “When your grandmother first came over here from the old country, she couldn’t even speak English, you know. The locals swore she was a witch, or the devil’s mistress. That’s why she changed her name to Lilith. It’s why we keep the theme with the restaurant. They tried to crush her, but she endured. We have to do the same. Don’t disappoint her legacy.”)

Crowley manhandled her until she was turned to face him. Standing close enough she could feel the warmth of his skin under his clothes. He was like a chipmunk-faced radiator, really.

“If it isn’t my favourite niece. Don’t be a stranger. Give us a kiss.” These days, she had to lean down for the job of pecking the man on the cheek. “That’s a girl,” he said, as he rifled his hands through her hair.

(When she was growing up, he always fixated on her hair, long and dark. She cut it into a shaggy bob and bleached it in the hopes it would shut him up, but instead, it turned out bobs were his second favourite look, though he still reminded her on a regular basis how beautiful her hair had been, before. It didn’t matter what she did. He always found a way to make it about his pleasure.)

“Uncle Crowley.” Her face felt like it might crack. “If you don’t mind, I wanted to catch up with my brother, before his shift tonight. Could you excuse me? We can still talk at dinner.”

“Tell me, and I’ll pass it along. There’s no time for chitchat. Your cousin’s gone missing.”

“Casey?” she asked, her disbelief overriding her senses. It just didn’t make sense why he’d worry about her. If she was unavailable, she was probably out with Gil. If her father wanted her home so desperately, he could try calling the bar they frequented, or loverboy’s house. It wasn’t a mystery.

“No, not Casey,” he snapped. “Her twin. You know, the one that doesn’t have a foregone conclusion for where she might be? Hence, my concern. I’m such a terrible father, worrying about my girl, when she’s never before missed Sunday dinner. The worst. Isn’t that right, you mouthy--”

The over door slammed shut. Crowley collected himself.

Cain patted her shoulder. “I’ll make plates for the two of you,” he said, kindly. “Don’t worry about making it back before everyone sits down. Just, see if you can find Ruby. Make sure she’s not in trouble. This isn’t like her.”

It was unlike her enough that Meg had absolutely no idea where to begin looking. Didn’t matter. It never did. So what if she had to skip out on dinner so she could look for Crowley’s kid? That was her job. At the restaurant, and at home; everywhere it was the same -- clean other people’s messes, without questions, or complaints. Her purpose in life was to do as she was told.

Luckily, if it was Cain’s culinary escapade this week, she wasn’t broken up about missing out. The man insisted on never putting enough salt on anything. Bonus -- she didn’t have to talk to Crowley, or listen to her family argue over asinine points, if she was busy driving all over creation.

Wouldn’t that just kill them, if they knew they were making her that little bit happier?

“Got it.”

“Splendid,” said Crowley, distractedly, before he threw her out the door. The screen clattered behind her.

As nonsensical as it was, she swore she could hear the disapproval from her father. He’d smile, the way he did when the people around him weren’t able to keep up, when a lesser man might raise his voice. It weirded her out. The bad blood between the two brothers and their sister’s husband wasn’t anything new, but usually, they kept it hidden under genteel layers. Usually, neither of them would have helped her.

Life was funny. Maybe things were changing, the way things did; maybe it wouldn’t turn into a headache for her future self. She hoped.

She’d burn that bridge when she came to it.


	2. Frosty Nicks

Operation: Find Ruby had a misleading name (albeit one she just made up.) Her cousin’s location wasn’t the important question. What Meg wanted to know, especially after she exhausted her leads within twenty minutes of the search, was:

Why in the seven hells did a legal adult need a keeper to check on her?

Meg would never know. The answer to such questions were kept solely for the cabal of people like Crowley, or Cain, or Azazel; they all found the nineteen year old significantly more rebellious than her twin, the underage boozehound running through the streets with her sketchy boyfriend. The Nixon/al-Shaitan/Crowleys had a rather idiosyncratic use for the term ‘rebellion’.

The logic made enough sense, Meg supposed, if you accepted their premise. Nothing was worse than leaving Lawrence, so therefore, since Ruby wanted to go to a university out-of-state, she might as well snort coke out of a different stripper’s asscrack every night. They would prefer if she did that, probably. Plenty of gentlemen’s clubs to be had in the city limits.

Abaddon wasn’t given the same treatment. Military service was exempt, apparently.

As much as she hated the man, she could accept that, probably, Crowley worried that his daughter might turn out like her mother, and run off without so much as a goodbye. Because he was an unpleasant person on every level, she couldn’t blame Tammi for what she did, or the twins, if they wanted to do the same thing. He was probably a percentage of why Ruby wanted out. (He certainly was for Meg.)

The others likely wanted to avoid the family being subject to rumours. People talked, especially when the runaway wife turns up in the tabloids, because she’s the leader of a cult, claiming to be the incarnation of the goddess Ashtoreth.

Not that it mattered if they had a second cult leader in the family. It’d probably be good for business, really. Gehenna Eatery wasn’t a place that did poorly with occult rumours. That was sorta their raison d’etre.

In the end, all the concern did was smother Ruby, and inspire her to work harder at leaving. They were doing her a favour, in a way. She didn’t have doubts, like Meg did at her age. She knew the problem wasn’t herself. Every double-standard was one more lump of coal for the steam engine of her ambition.

It helped that she was a nerd. The rest of them never did well academically; Ruby could have gotten a full scholarship out of high school, if her father hadn’t sabotaged her. She never did anything risky. If anyone could make something of themselves, it was her.

Which was fine and dandy for Ruby’s life goals. For Meg, in the present moment, it wrecked her shit. Tracking someone who had no known habits was absolutely impossible. As far as she was aware, the libraries were closed, mathlete season was over, and none of the local haunts were quiet enough for her cousin’s tastes. Ruby might as well have been spirited away.

She didn’t even know if Ruby had friends. It stood to reason she did, but Meg never heard about or met any of them. They might as well not exist.

Where the hell could Ruby be wasn’t the most important question of Operation: Find Ruby, but it was the one that stumped her, definitely.

-

She drove for hours, eyes peeled. No dice. Wherever Ruby hid, she didn’t want to be found.

Meg despaired.

Ultimately, she’d only said she would look for the girl. Technically. She never gave a promise made to return her to the house, or to do it efficiently. Cain’s offer to set aside food for them couldn’t be considered binding, could it? It didn’t leave her without room to argue her case.

Either way, she’d get an earful from Crowley. The leprechaun would be just as pissed at her whether she put in the work or didn’t. Before his inevitable hissy fit, she could either spend the night on a snipe hunt, or she could go home, rest, and enjoy herself. The likelihood of finding Ruby wouldn’t change.

If the stars aligned, Papa might even appreciate the slight to the man, however minor, and buy her a present. She could dream.

The greater likelihood was that he’d punish her for not putting sufficient effort into the fruitless quest, but she couldn’t bet on that, necessarily. Compared to her predictions of the old man’s mood pattern, weathermen were psychic. Everything about him contradicted everything else. She could never be sure if it was raining, even if the drops hit her face.

It wasn’t her problem, though. It was future Meg’s.

She couldn’t make decisions worrying about that chick. Future Meg would take care of herself, the way she always did, all the times their Past-er Self did something stupid. For now, there was a motel bed with her name on it.

-

First, she bought some dinner at the gas station down the road. A 12pk of fried chicken, with a 40 of St Ives to wash it down. (The gossip mag was for the car. She got bored at stoplights.)

Running into Cas was unexpected. By the looks of it, Cas hadn’t anticipated being there, herself. She made a sorry sight, sitting on the bench beside the garbage bins, staring at her hands as if they might fess up how it all happened.

She was reticent with the details, but Meg didn’t need them to know it involved Dean, somehow.

What a piece of work, that guy. He left her on the side of the road.

While she’d be the first to admit she wasn’t a model citizen, Meg did still have a moral code; leaving a woman alone at a trucker stop right off the interstate was not something she could abide within herself. Even if she could, she needed to be a better person than Dean, so she could rest well in her superiority over him. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most selfless of motives, but at least her petty ass was doing something that on the surface looked like a good deed. Because it was the right thing. No one needed to know the lowbrow, shitty reasons in her heart.

Besides, she hated letting strangers into her room. That was penance enough.

-

The door shut too loud behind them.

“We’ll get you home after dinner, how’s that sound?”

At Singer Auto, Meg had figured Cas was impassive. Now, she wondered if, instead, her face never showed her emotions. There wasn’t a note of surprise, or gratitude, or even distrust that Meg could find, yet when she murmured a soft, quick, “Thank you,” it was with a deferential nod. So, she was probably grateful. Or intimidated. Maybe she had a bad case of the social anxieties. The details remained a mystery.

Chowing down, then bopping out was the plan, originally.

Until Meg turned on the TV.

Its glow made them forget. Meg even forgot she hated strangers in her room. The hours drained away.

Turned out, Cas made decent company, and an even better soap opera watching partner. Once Meg explained the in-genre wackiness of Dr Sexy, Cas understood, well enough she called several twists that were surprises to Meg. It was beautiful. She was some sort of melodramatic programming savant, with her quick, idiosyncratic study.

Names? She wasn't so good at. Faces? Forget about it.

But, she never forgot Dr Sexy if she could see his cowboy boots, and she remembered Nurse Ratched “by the way she always burst out of corners like a rat.” Even if she called them by the wrong names, and, somehow, was completely oblivious to the reference to ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.

(Seriously. Meg knew, even though she’d never seen a Nicholson flick in her life. The girl had some key volumes missing in her mental encyclopedia of pop culture. Analog clocks tripped her up something awful, too. If it weren’t for those things she might be unstoppable.)

‘Idiosyncratic’ covered a lot of bases with Cas, overall. If there was a verb, she had a particular way of doing it.

She spoke slow, with clear enunciation. She tilted her head to the side when she talked, sometimes far enough that Meg had to stop herself from throwing out her hands to catch her. She sat at the edge of the dinette chair like it was a diving board. When they shared the fried chicken, she picked at it, ripping the flesh off the bones, then ripping those pieces into smaller pieces that she popped into her mouth, one by one.

Meg wasn’t sure what to think about her. One the one hand, she was easy on the eyes, and had a dry, biting side that peeped through as she got more comfortable talking. One the other hand, Cas was, without a doubt, the weirdest person Meg had ever met, and every few minutes they hit an awkward impasse of not understanding each other.

The dichotomy of the Cas problem was represented by that atrocious sweater she swore. It was an unseasonably warm item for late August weather in Kansas. Cas was unreasonably hot for someone who chipped at Meg’s will to live, just by being her --personable, yet incredibly confusing and annoying-- self.

God was probably slapping his side, rolling around in his heavenly LaZ-E-Boy. Meg’s life was a shark, and she knew, now, the moment she met Cas, she’d jumped right on over it. Her weird shit magnetism struck the oil well. Every word between them was black gold.

On the other (other) hand, there wasn’t anything new about incomprehensible people vexing her with their picadillos. She enjoyed the girl’s company (in between wanting to tear her hair out.) That -- well. That was something new. Meg couldn’t remember the last conversations she had that weren’t transactions of some kind. Maybe she liked Cas.

She could decide later. In the present moment, Cas needed to go home.

Except, as it turned out, the task of getting her to where she lived made Find The Ruby look like a cakewalk in comparison, as she had neither an address nor landmarks to go by, or even so much as the homeowners’ last name to look them up in the phone book.

(To say Cas was fuzzy on the details didn’t give her enough credit. She was a penicillin farm of uselessness.)

All she knew was that it was near a fancy restaurant, and that their name probably started with an S, if it wasn’t a C. She’d only recently moved in with the people, so she wasn’t even sure if she could recognize the estate, if she saw it.

The search promised to be absolutely thrilling.

Meg should’ve known better than to think Crowley and/or Papa would punish her. They would, doubtlessly. But Life took the initiative, as it always did, and boy, did she feel sorry. At least Cas could rest assured that she wouldn’t leave her at a random gas station, like Dean had. Meg would keep her as a live-in hobo if she had to; she’d cashed in those Moral High Ground points, and had no intention of returning them. The two of them were stuck together until Meg managed to get Cas home.

It was ride or die, now.

(Possibly forever. Worst case scenario, the family’d send out a missing persons report, right?)

(Right??)

-

Fate intervened on Life’s horrors; it brought along with it one of the great questions, right up there with 'why are we here?', 'where do the socks go?', and 'for the love of God, how hard is it to piss inside the toilet?':

Parents. Are they psychic?

There was a knock at the door. No one called ‘housekeeping!’, or ‘open up!’, so there was only one option: Mrs Langston, who introduced herself as Zora, back when Meg first met her.

She remembered. She couldn’t ever forget.

For whatever reason -- lack of sleep, intoxication, poor life choices--, Meg chose to voice the idiot thought she had, that it was strange for an old woman to be named after video game fish people. She wasn’t sure why she had that thought in the first goddamn place. More bafflingly, she couldn’t fathom why, even if she were stupid enough to think it, she decided it needed to be said. She knew better than to open her big mouth. Papa was a strong proponent for the image preserving properties of silence, and Meg’s experience talking with strangers all day every day of her life backed up the theory that talking more than necessary rarely went well.

But she did it. So now, anytime the woman’s shadow darkened her door?

Meg’s entire body winced from the effort of not punching herself in the face. Even after they rotted into the ground, she’d probably hate herself. If she ever saw Mrs Langston in Hell, Meg would wrench the pitchfork out from the nearest imp’s hands so she could stab herself in the eyes.

A good shame was like that. It stuck around, with constant reminders of how you shouldn’t be allowed to talk. Or live.

At least they couldn’t have any further awkward conversations. Two weeks after that, Zora’s voice cut off in the middle of a sentence. The doctors couldn’t explain it. She was mute, after that.

Meg hid in the bathroom when she heard the news, wept with relief. Because she was stupid.

Also, maybe a little callous and/or over-emotional and/or morally bankrupt, but that wasn’t the important part.

Past Meg (stupid, so very stupid) never considered the fact that communication involved more than words. The awkward exchanges weren’t stopped by the woman’s predicament.

If anything, the silent awkward exchanges were worse.

Though she hated Meg on sight, Mrs Langston was still businesslike, if condescending. With all the added frustration of going mute, she was fury, an unyielding, nonverbal Done With Life’s Shit, all day every day. The fold of her bony arms over her apron might as well have been yelling.

Between that and the shame fairies, it was inevitable that Meg felt less than an inch tall anytime the old woman had to come knocking. Naturally, she had to while Meg felt terribly already, tonight. It was the spirit of the evening.

When Mrs Langston gestured for ‘phone,’ Meg knew it was her own damn fault. It was all she could think of the entire walk to the lobby. Papa would be on the other line. If he was calling, he wasn’t pleased.

That hammered in the lesson. She should’ve known better than to shirk Ruby Quest. It was a pointless, outrageous errand, and absolutely bullshit, but she knew better. She had twenty-four years of life experience to tell her that no matter how poorly off she was when other people controlled her life, it was even worse when she took the reins. Everyone else was somewhere on the continuum of Awful to Actively Evil. She was those things as much as anyone else, while also being completely, absolutely Brainless. The choice could be given to her between the Cave of Eternal Torment and the Field of Happy Sunshine, and somehow, without fail, she’d end up with stakes up her ass, because she completely bypassed the fine print. It’d turn out they were named along the Iceland/Greenland model of truthiness.

Meg couldn’t punch herself unnoticed. Not with Cas in the rear. She was, quite possibly, capital-d Disabled, but she wasn’t blind. Instead, Meg had to try to focus. She threw each thought to the side, each jolt of wordless, overwhelming terror and self-hatred.

They hit her in the back of the head. They piled up, over her. She couldn’t breathe.

She needed to calm down. She couldn’t flip out right before a phone call with Papa. Fuck, she couldn’t even manage that much, and her stupid eyes were watering.

_Run into that car. You’d be doing him a favour. He’ll be sad, but you won’t be able to disappoint him anymore. The police could take Cas home. Do it. Jump. Go, right now. Why aren’t you doing it? Go. Stop being selfish. Think about how you’re hurting everyone else. They’d be better off without you. You should do one decent thing in your life, you lazy fuck. Do the right thing. Kill yourself. Do it. Go. Do it do it do it do it--_

-

So, she punched herself in the fomach, then sprinted into the living room of the lobby.

The ‘lobby.’ In reality, the first floor of the Langstons’ home did double-time between their use and the motel’s, the same way their personal phone line doubled for the customers’ use. It was incoming, local calls only, and the charge added to the bill, so most people never bothered. As far as Meg knew, her father was the only one to ever take advantage of it. She didn’t even know about the set-up until the first time Mrs Langston knocked at her door for a call; Mr Langston explained it, afterwards.

For most guests, it wasn’t worth it. The locals generally had better uses for their money, and the tourists had no need for anyone to call.

Not to mention, the ‘office’ was nothing more than a door-less closet that had a barstool and shelving placed at the appropriate height instead of a desk. Meg hated taking calls. The details varied, but she always ended up getting hurt somehow. One memorable time, she managed to collide her elbow against a row of shelves; her arm ricocheted into her face, the ear piece jabbed her in the eye, and when she fell, she hadn’t let go, so the phone dislodged off its mount, and fell, too. On top of her. The force knocked even more shelves down, too. It was a clusterfuck.

She didn’t particularly want to risk a chance of that performance's repeat, with Cas around, so she leant around the doorjamb. While the position put a strain on her back, at least the cord would either snap, or pull the phone down onto the floor; she could maintain some dignity. If she wiggled her ass, maybe she could pretend it was a flirtation. Make it normal.

As normal as it could be. Flirting with Miss Literal didn’t seem worthwhile. If she weren’t too immersed reading the errata on the coffee table to notice, she'd probably ask if Meg needed to pee.

(Seriously. They weren’t even business cards or brochures. The space doubled as the Langstons’ junkmail pile. How fascinating could it be? Meg’s ass was better. Even if Cas weren’t into asses, or girls. It wasn’t much of a competition.)

Time to accept the inevitable.

“Hello, sir.”

_Keep it soft and pleasant. Don’t be too bright -- you’ll sound sarcastic._

“Hello, pearl. Should I be able to reach you at this moment?"

"No, sir."

“You're aware. Is there a reason in particular you chose to shirk your responsibilities?"

"No. I shouldn’t have stopped looking for Ruby. I’m sorry."

"No, not that fools’ errand Crowley sent you on. Tell me, were you planning on teleporting your new siblings from the bus stop to the house, or did you somehow forget the four children that were depending on you?”

“Oh -- oh. I was supposed to pick up the new kids.”

“Two hours ago. At first, I thought it must be traffic, or that you were running late. But no. You weren’t even looking for your cousin. Family’s not important compared to a hot date with your bed, is it?”

 _That’s not true._ Meg winced. _…It’s not_ not _true._ She waited for the rest of the chewing out, silent save for an affirmative noise. Best to limit the potential damage.

Papa sighed. “It’s my fault. I should’ve known you would forget. When you came home, I meant to remind you, but you were in-and-out in a flash, and I told myself ‘Don’t worry. She’s responsible. She doesn’t need to be chased down the road; she’ll remember to act like a grown woman.’ My mistake. I should have moved the doctor’s appointment, and gone myself. Just stay where you are. I’ll go get them.”

“You don’t need to do that,” she said, in a panic. She felt something pull out of place in the phone, as she jolted, pressing on with her words in a rush, “I’m sorry. I really am. The stop’s not even a mile from here, so it doesn’t make any sense for you to go out. Let me take care of it. I’m going right now.”

Everything was still. Over the line, she heard Papa close the screen door. Despair cut through her.

“Please let me take care of it. I can get there before you. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Well-- that is one of the reasons I asked for you to get them, in the first place. Along with the fact you have the station wagon, so you wouldn’t have to make multiple trips. If you think you could put others ahead of yourself long enough to get it done, then, feel free to exert yourself. I know it must be hard. Once you’ve gotten them home, I’ll take care of the rest. You won’t have to do anything. You can go back to sitting on your ass, and we’ll all be happy.”

The phone clicked. She pressed her forehead against the wall, and shut her eyes, tight. The floor kept spinning, with her stomach as the center, like someone shoved her into the amusement park ride. The centrifugal force one. Fit right in with how nauseous she felt. If she puked, it’d get all over the panels.

Only, there weren’t panels. It was some old people’s sparsely decorated living room-slash-motel lobby. It’d get all over their things, and on to Cas’ face.

Fuck.

She’d been distracted. Cas was close, now. Spitting distance. A bad choice, actually, for her continued not-being-fucking-puked-on, but she couldn’t know that. Instead, Cas stared at Meg’s shoulder area, and kept flicking her thumbs, agitated, next to her thighs. Like she was trying to keep it hidden. As if the sound of mile-a-minute flicking didn’t give it away.

“Meg,” she started out strong, got a whole word out. Then she stumbled over her syllables. She couldn’t get it out. Whatever it was she had to say, it was important. She stared harder.

That was a thing Meg had learned about her, in their short time together. Facial expressions were a more precise problem than Cas didn’t have them. She couldn’t emote, not the way most people did. She laughed, and cried, and went through fifteen stages of discomfort within a conversation, and other face-y things, same as everyone else, but the major difference in how she looked was how much she squinted. It was as if her eyes decided the job might as well be done by them.

Cas switched from flicking her thumbs to flapping her hands.

Whatever the words were that she was trying so hard to get out, the two of them didn’t need to wait forever for her to say. In the long run, they were as relevant as what Meg had to say to her father. They didn’t need to be said, because whatever it was, the task at hand outranked personal issues.

Meg waved, dismissive. “Look, just stop trying. We can go.”

In reply, she got a buzzer noise. Cas flapped harder, at her general direction, clearly frustrated.

Meg wished she’d be less stubborn. Yeah, whatever she had to say wasn’t important, but it wasn’t like Meg meant that as a point against Cas, in particular. It just. Didn’t matter. Nothing did. If it was one of the rare things that did, waiting until they got to the car wouldn’t diminish it. There were places they needed to get to, stat.

“You can. Um, you can leave me here, if you need to. I have money. I don’t want to be a problem.”

The gestures made it look like Cas had the idea in her hands, and was trying to palm it off on Meg. All _shoo shoo shoo_. Very expressive, hands. Good job. Did you have a conference with the eyes?

“What? No. Seriously, you’re the least of my problems.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Though, if you want to stay here, that’s fine, I guess. Just stick in the room. It can get pretty sketch around here at night. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

That … didn’t come out right. Redo.

“I mean, well. If you’re okay staying in my room? I guess we’re actually strangers. Maybe you want to pay for one, get your own room. I’m not sure how many of the rooms are filled, and you’d have to wait to ask Mr Langston, and, well, if the answer’s no, then you’re gonna be stuck out here, because my door’s locked. I -- well. You could keep the key, in case. But you’d have to promise me not to get lost somewhere weird, or, if you did, that you’d remember some basic details to help whoever finds you, so you can get back here. Can you promise that? It doesn’t seem like something you can control.”

That came out worse. Shit.

Understandably, it pissed off Cas. She scowled. “What I meant,” she said, testily, “Was to help you, since you helped me. If you find this area unacceptable for being outside alone, I think we should go together, so you’re not by yourself. That sounds like it’s what would help you.”

“I won’t be alone. Got a set of plus-ones to pick up. It’s not something you have to deal with.”

No, thanks. The last thing Meg could see making her safer was if Cas escorted her.

-

Cas escorted her.

If the term meant following Meg, being too stubborn to persuade to stop, and weighing too much to be pushed to the motel room, she did it to a tee. She even used her ineffable Cas Powers to divine the right car to climb into while Meg pretended to look for it.

(She saw bees on the dandelions poking through the concrete base when they first arrived, so they must have parked next to a lamp post. Meg’s car was the only one next to a lamp post where the dandelions weren’t puffs, she explained, with a serious, matter-of-fact air completely at odds with her words, and how she turned herself into dead weight, anchoring her feet at an angle against Meg’s attempts to pull her back out of the car.)

The sad part was, Meg started out pretending, but she really did try to unlock the wrong car. Cas found the damn thing before she did, with her whacked-out bee story.

(“It’s not weird. You’re the weird one. Why would you try to leave me behind? You said you needed to be there quickly. Let’s go already.”)

Clearly, Meg had lost her mind somewhere along the way. Explained why she didn’t remember anything Papa said about an exact date for the adopteds’ arrival, to boot.

Her mental reel lacked some crucial frames between zero to signed papers. He'd talked about taking her and Tom on a roadtrip around the country to pick up the kids from their different states, like it’d be a crucible for Family 2.0 instead of a logistical, financial, and hormonal nightmare; she knew that their parents were recently deceased friends of friends of friends; they were survivors of house fires, like her. That was all she remembered.

There’d already been enough evidence to know that the man wasn’t ever going to make sense to her, but she was adrift, and the blank space in her mind frightened her. She never forgot to do something she was asked to do. Even when she used to drink more --nightly blackouts instead of her current weekends-only schedule--, she had systems in place so she could still do everything, could work around her impairments. Years 15 through 23 almost killed her, yet she managed to keep her promises. This current mistake deeply unsettled her. It was like she was a stranger to herself.

Didn’t matter. She could worry about it later. Safe minors trumped existential crises, on the importance level.

Besides, she was freezing. She could focus on that. The morning was balmy enough she had to dig out her least favourite shirt, a girly, lilac number Aunt Colette found in the bowels of some retail outlet, but after sundown, it was cold enough that Cas’ sweater, the abomination made more abominable by how little anyone needed it in August, was apropos. Talk about absurd.

It took six tries to get the keys into the ignition, with the way her hands shook. Not being able to see it didn’t help. Her doorlight blinked its last months ago, and the (dandelion-having, keep in mind. very important distinction.) parking lot lamp above the car flickered something awful, enough to strobe. Like they were in some would-be maverick’s ‘arthouse’ film that prioritized disco ball effects over, say, lights that fucking worked.

Or, they were left out of the budget by the sort of person who neglected their own car, and prioritized the available money and time they could spend on repairs for their own vehicle on meaningless visits to asshole mechanics, for the sake of a geriatric whose cataracts meant he wasn’t supposed to drive in the first place.

Maybe they thought to themselves ‘why waste money on lights? We can fumble around. We should save that money for something more important.’

The ignition wouldn’t turn.

A+ in dramatic timing, car. F- in not being a douche. “This can’t be happening,” she groaned.

“Check the engine.”

“Thanks for the input, Cassandra.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know the first thing about cars. The problem might as well be there’s a gremlin inside who gets paid to make me miserable, for all the good checking it will do.”

Cas harrumphed. “It’s not hard. Could be something simple, like the coolant levels. Pop the hood.”

Thank you, sidekick, for being someone who keeps company with a car guy.

Though. They probably didn’t keep company, since even Dean shouldn’t be messed up enough to leave  _his_ girl in particular at a gas station, right? As reprehensible as he was in general. Acquaintances, maybe? Friends? Mysterious relationship, that one. Whatever category it was. (Frenemies?) She didn’t even know how Cas met Dean.

At any rate, Cas felt confident enough in her automobile knowledge to check the engine. That spoke to some life experience or another. Maybe it didn’t even have to do with Dean. The woman had an entire life Meg didn’t know about, with twenty-odd years of who knew what.

Shit, were the two of them bad at icebreaker talk. They jumped right to the banter without knowing the most basic information about each other.

They’d have to fix that. But it could happen naturally. Hell, the way things were going, the two of them had until the heat death of the universe to get to know each other. Plenty of time to share random intimate details in between the giant blocks of snark.

For example, a new datapoint: Meg didn’t know Cas’ voice went deeper when she yelled. It never left an octave befitting some lantern-jawed superhero, but when she talked, it had a lighter inflection, like she was trying to make herself sound more feminine through force of will. A modern Sisyphus with vocal chords.

When she was panicked, she didn’t.

“Meg, get out!”

Meg didn’t have enough time for her to react, before the light pole smashed through the ceiling of the car. She would’ve died with a caved-in skull and zero idea what happened. Instead, she was a hair’s breadth to the left, so everything from her parietal to her phalanxes kept their uncrushed, unbroken properties. And, though she couldn’t say why, or how it happened, she did have an idea when it came to what: light pole, car, astronomical repair bill coming up in the future, narrowly avoided death.

Her acquaintance (friend?) tore open the car door, wild, her breath coming out in post-adrenaline huffs. “Are you hurt?” she asked. As Meg blinked, stupidly, instead of replying, she added, “Are you ok??”

“Peachy.” She kept staring up at Cas, lost.

Then, the car flipped over like some giant, pissed off toddler decided they didn’t like their toys. They screamed. It wasn’t the most hard boiled response, Meg’d admit, but she didn’t have to be, what with falling out of a flying car, and then, soon as she landed on the gravel, nearly getting clocked by yet another high-velocity automobile. The entire set of janky ass hoopties started crashing into each other, barely missing her and Cas’ all-too crushable meatsacks while they hauled ass.

“Lobby!”

It wasn’t the best plan. The walls weren’t enough to stop them getting killed, if whatever was happening got frisky. But, it was a better plan than hiding behind a patch of dirt or using a stop sign as a fortification. (Freakin Kansas.)

She slammed the door behind them, hoping the murder-toddler had the attention span of one.

“That’s not gonna help.” Thanks for the input, Cas.

Meg checked the peephole. Near as she could tell, there weren’t several tons of steel barreling towards them, so she said, “Nothing’s coming. Who cares if it’s supposed to help so long as it does?”

“Nevermind. We have a bigger problem.”

Exasperated, Meg spun around, snapping, “What could be a bigger problem?”

She didn’t see anything. Problems, sure. Minor ones. Nothing that outdid the opening act. Not the spooky couch. Or the unsettling fireplace. Or even the tiny office area of displeasure.

The corpse inside the office, alright. Maybe Mr Langston dying was objectively worse than their narrowly-escaped crushy death. His face was frozen in terror. Beside the dead guy, fidgeting her head to the side, was Cas, who said, “We need to call the police.”

She repeated it, more strenuously, as Meg walked over to the fireplace. Thought she wasn’t taking the situation seriously enough, probably. But Meg had a method to the madness. There was always an arrangement at the fireplace from Mrs Langstons’ florist friend; she needed to move it to check her idea.

A fireplace needed a firepoker set, right? There wasn’t any reason for them to have thrown it out just because they didn’t use it for fires anymore.

There wasn’t a set.

For whatever obscure reason, though, there was the stand for the poker and the paddle. Both made of iron; that was all she needed. Brandishing one in each hand, she waved them at Cas, to show she wasn’t just some heartless sort who didn’t care about how they could help the dead guy (though really, calling the police wouldn’t make him less dead.)

“What do we need that for?” she asked, even as the phone in her hand didn’t make a sound. It would’ve gone to operator, if the line were intact. Maybe she didn’t question it.

That was alright. Meg could grok the situation for the two of them.

“We need to defend ourselves with. Which one do you want?”

"Rusted iron treats heart attacks, is that right? Won't have to worry about any cardiac episodes. The fire poker stand’s gonna call the police for us, is that it?"

“Look -- what we just saw, you think what happened to Mr Langston was a heart attack? Does that look like the face of a guy who went peaceful to you? It’s gotta be ghosts. Iron repels spirits. We’re lucky this was in the fireplace."

"What, so, there’s ghosts in the motel? They tried to kill us with cars and just decided hey, let’s go a little more subtle with this one. Give him a heart attack. They’re avant garde supernatural freaks.”

Point taken.

Before Meg could figure out her argument, a greasy haired girl with talons appeared between them, as see-through as she was menacing; Meg swung at her with the fire poker stand. It went through her like vapor, and she disappeared, hissing.

That solved that. She didn’t need an argument anymore. Hell, she didn’t need to admit she didn’t have one. “Told you so,” she said, smug. “It’s ghosts."

-

They agreed going back to the parking lot was a bad idea. That left them standing in the lobby, with their hands up their asses, Meg swinging at the ghosts whenever they appeared.

“Think about it – to your left! What if the ghosts weren’t the same as the cars? Just because they happened near the same time doesn’t mean the same source was behind both. Maybe even the ghosts are a coincidence, and I was right about the heart attack. Maybe it’s not all the same threat. Meg, duck!”

A teapot crashed over her head. “Can this wait? Let’s save the analysis for after we get out alive.”

“I’m just saying, maybe we could run. Apparently there’s a limit on where the cars will go. Why are we still in the house with the obvious ghost problem?”

“That’s a good point. Okay, there’s a door behind the office. If we can get to the road, maybe someone will see us.”

-

No one saw them. No one except for more fucking ghosts.

“Told you so,” she rasped, while the girl with the talons shoved her hand into Meg’s chest. She couldn’t move. Her beatstick was on the ground, as useless as Cassock trying to get at it, only to be intercepted by the boys with talons. Turned out, the motel was just the beginning. The entire area was infested with creepy, murderous ghost children, fond of throwing stuff with their minds.

“You want those to be your last words?” said Cas, panicked.

Meg thought about it, and added, with her last bit of breath, “Hurts like hell. Not the least bit pleasant. Not a fucking heart attack.”

Her vision blacked out; she couldn’t see it with her eyes, but she knew Cas’ squinting well enough to know it was there, and the way the lines under her eyes looked, diagonal. Blinded before she kicked the bucket, and yet she was still getting stared down by the weird girl.

Ride or die, right? That’s what she said.

Cas needed to run. The ghosts were distracted. They only paid enough attention to keep her from the fray. Once Meg died, they might turn on her. She needed to get out of there in time. There wasn’t any reason Cas had to die, too. Heroes were stupid, even if they succeeded in throwing themselves in front of the bullet. At this point, all Cas’d buy for herself was a ticket to Hell with Meg, and that wasn’t worth her life, it really wasn’t, for fuck’s sake, she wished she’d run away like someone with a lick of sense when she had the chance--

Meg hit the ground.

Strangest thing. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes. Instead, she heard her cousin, Ruby, and the sound of chains dragging against the gravel. A shotgun firing. Somebody wrapped their arms around her.

Time to test out that ‘recognize Mrs Langston’ hypothesis.

(Wait. Did the ghosts kill her, too, or only her husband? Maybe she was still alive. Great. Just what Meg needed for her afterlife: Schrodinger’s Skeleton.)

“For fuck’s sake, Meg, this isn’t a time to blackout.” Ruby shook her, rapidly. “Get up.”

She did. She didn’t open her eyes, though, so she crashed her forehead against her cousin’s, who probably should’ve backed away, or something. Anything. Instead, the two of them fell back down. Good system.

Meg sighed. “What’re you doing here?”

Ruby gestured around them, at the circle of chains, and the other two people looming above them on the inside of the circle – Cas, and some lumberjack cuss, with a pointy nose and muttonchops. “We’re saving your lives. Someone should.”

“So, that’s the boytoy? Were you ever planning on telling me? I had to go on a snipe hunt for your duplicitous ass. When did this happen? Since when are you as red-blooded as the rest of humanity?”

“Seriously not the time for that, Meg,” groused Ruby. She pulled Meg up to stand with her.

“Sounds just like Dean,” said the new guy, without turning to them. His job, apparently, was to shoot the ghosts with the shotgun when they appeared. He had a duffel next to his feet, with ammo sticking out. “Someday, I’m gonna get there too late, and he’ll be bleeding out in some ditch, and he’ll use his last words to say something pervy. I swear.”

Meg couldn’t help herself. She hissed, “Dean Winchester?” and turned around, to shake Ruby, hard. “Of all the boys to date, you picked the spawn of whatever putrid cuss begat the scourge of my every week? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Cas shook her hands at them. “Timing.”

“Wait until we’re not in mortal danger, yeah?” Ruby peeled the hands off her shoulders, backed away from Meg, towards her partner. “Or, better yet, how about you don’t assume everyone with the same first name is the same person? Sam’s not a Winchester. Guess you’ll have to throw a bitchfit over some other pointless thing. You know, if we survive the night.”

Not new to your ways, Ruby. Classic misdirect. Might’ve worked, though, if it weren’t for a flash of guilt in the pet lumberjack’s dewy, sensitive eyes.

“Uh, actually. Remember I said our parents divorced? Dean kept our Dad’s name. I went with Mom, so that’s why it’s different. It’s, uh. It’s Dean.”

Cas blew her top. It was a switch from total agitation to shock stillness, to staring intently at the ground.

“LET’S FOCUS ON GETTING OUT OF HERE ALIVE, MAYBE?” she yelled.

-

With Cas’ insistence, they started talking game plan.

She was right. They couldn’t spend the rest of their lives in the circle.

Except, morning had to come eventually, and ghosts didn’t kill people in daylight. Probably. If hearing enough stories about ghosts conferred any actually useful information. They didn’t need to spend any more time than that standing around.

The way Meg saw it, they could stand for a handful of hours, or risk getting killed. It wasn’t much of a competition. Unless the parking lot returned to Killer Flying Cars, staying put sounded like the best option. That was what she suggested -- they stay.

Neither Ruby nor Sam went with it, though, so it didn’t matter if she was right or wrong. No one else saw it that way. The choices were between going together or splitting up.

“The two of them need to stay here. We’re going to go look for the others.” Quickly, Sam put the scattered effects into his duffel bag – some boxes of salt, ammo, a rosary, a bible. Meg hadn’t noticed everything at first, but damn, the kid was prepared. Wasn’t he a regular little exorcist in their midst. “The ones behind this.”

“No, we don’t. No one’s splitting up,” Cas countered.

Ruby took the duffel from Sam, and slung it over her shoulder. “Sam, she’s right. We don’t know who we’re looking for, or where they’re hiding. What if they wait for us to leave to get the drop on them?”

Everyone looked around. As the land was nothing but flat as shit Kansas dirt, it wasn’t hard. They saw an empty road across from them, a parking lot with cars smashed together, ten motel rooms, and a lobby with a dead guy. Not many hiding places available. Nothing but motel rooms.

“We’ll be twenty feet tops from them at any moment. It’s safest in the circle.”

“That’s not far to run, if we need to. Let’s go together,” said Cas.

“Fine,” replied Sam, biting out the words. “Everyone behind me. We’ll check the rooms, from Ten down to One.”

-

Rooms Ten through Five didn’t have hidden murderers. Or guests.

Four was Meg’s. She only barely stopped Sam kicking the door down by brandishing her key. “Got this,” she said. Inside, there were two room-hiders. Except, they seemed a little too pathetic to be behind any sort of murderous schemes. The girl fled backwards towards the bathroom, with her hands held out, and the boy stared at Sam, frozen. Then he jabbered on about some man with yellow eyes, and being kidnapped.

“We’re not trouble. Really. You can tell him you won, and we won’t care, honest. We’ll play dead. We didn’t want to be part of the contest anyway. Just tell him you won, and we’ll leave, and everyone can be happy, yeah? No murder required. We never wanted this.”

“Did you – did you already kill the others?” the girl stammered.

Everyone stared at the two. They were not the confrontation anyone expected. Sorta figured on them being taller, maybe, or at least not being gigantic fucking weenies.

“We didn’t kill anyone,” said Ruby, gently, as if the question were valid. “You gotta tell us what’s going on. What contest? This man that kidnapped you, do you have any identifying features besides his eyes -- height, skin color, hair? We came here to help.”

It was a wasted effort. The girl started screaming her head off.

Then, the ceiling collapsed.


	3. Old Scratch's

There were so many trees. Taller than she could see past. Freaked her out, mostly. If she looked at them too long the shadows morphed into monsters, a regular Mothra vs Godzilla fight -- only, without the cute singing twins, or the not dying because it’s a movie, it’s not real. They were watching her. She huddled closer to the ground. Creatures that ginormous shouldn’t care about silly little bottom-dwellers. The fire crackled, and she imagined the embers were dancers, celebrating the end of their society.

She needed not to look at the trees.

Most of the scene wasn’t the way she remembered it. None of the other girls from the summer camp were around the bonfire, chatting like they had been. There wasn’t the smell of burning twigs or Cindy McKellan’s secret vodka stash. Instead of having her past self’s body, the shortest and chubbiest of the twelve girls, she was the herself of the present moment, complete with the injuries. The bruising over her arms was new. Looked like ropes.

None of it hurt. She didn’t feel anything, like she was detached from her body.

“Round little thing, weren’t you? Time goes by so fast.” The past’s Miss Tabitha was combined with Papa. His face, her hair, her nose, his hands, her clothes. His eyes, winking at her. “Good to see you’re alert, kid.”

He folded his hands over his knee, and the costume shifted completely. No more Miss Tabitha.

“What is this?” she murmured. The fire, the trees, the logs -- they were all gone. She wasn’t sure what they were sitting on. Or why they were sitting.

“Lucid dreaming. One of the many abilities your peers developed.” he said, wistful.

She blinked the dust from her eyes (except she was asleep?). “Peers?”

“The children, of course,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your new brothers and sisters?” With a thoughtful shrug, he added, “Well. I wouldn’t call them new. The chickens are coming home to roost, pearl. Big plans ahead. Beautiful things. I want you to have a fighting chance to see them.”

Everything felt unreal, but significant. Like the words from a record played in reverse. Creepy.

“I – what? You’re not making any sense. If you needed help, you could have told me. I’d do anything for you.”

Meg reached for him. She thought she stood, but she couldn’t tell, she had nothing to use as bearings. It was a vacuum. Everything in every direction was the same.

“You’re already doing all that you need to. Patience. Everyone has their role.”

She wasn’t moving. But then, he wrapped his arms around her, picked her up like she’d run out from the bus all over again. She felt thirteen all over again, heavier and shorter and relieved to be out of the woods, and then she wasn’t, she was twenty-four, asleep, terrified, and absolutely lost. She sputtered. The words kept running away. If this was a dream, she only had so much time before she woke up. She needed to get control of herself, and think well enough for long enough she could convince him to explain.

“We can laugh about it over breakfast. I’ll cook your favourite – banana peppers and feta.”

(Anything to get her mind off how he sent her up north to a glorified mental ward against her will.)

That was the past. She wasn’t sure if he said it, or if it was part of the dream. Everything was double-images and incorrect details. There was a necklace, in his hands, and he clasped it behind her neck. The charm fit in the dip of her collarbone. That -- that didn’t happen, back then. She never liked necklaces.

That was the present. Meg said, tired, “ Stay, please. Just tell me what’s going on. You can’t just expect me to go along with anything you want without ever telling me why it’s happening.”

“That’s exactly what you’re here for.” Her skin burnt, suddenly, like hot water over fiberglass. He kissed her forehead. “Good luck.”

-

“That’s the stupidest shit!”

Woke up yelling. Then, she noticed her hands were tied behind her back, and that everyone was in a new motel room, with two contenders added to the fray. A girl, short, pale, and chubby, and a boy, tall, lean, and dark.

“Not the best position to say that, right now,” the boy scoffed.

_Wasn’t talking to you, kid._

Beside her, Cas hissed, low, “Try not making anything worse. Just. Take a shot at it. Look inside yourself, and manage to not say words, or antagonize anyone. Try.”

“I hadn’t been talking to him,” she retorted, just as snippy. Cas stared at her. Because, yeah, that was the stupid, wasn’t it. Her face went hot. “Shut up.”

“Look,” the girl kneeled in front of them, hands on her hips. “This isn’t what we want, either. But fair is fair. We won. Tell us which of you are the teams, and we’ll let the other two go. There’s no reason everybody has to die.”

“Not it.”

Thanks for the help, Back Away Girl. (Lily?)

“Dude, we saw you at the station. We know you’re a team. Nice try.”

“Teams for what?” asked Cas.

“Ugh. I don’t want to spend all night interrogating these assholes, Jake. Didn’t Yellow Eyes say the teams were all a boy and a girl? That tall one and his girlfriend were working together. Boy, girl. Let’s just kill them, Andy, and Lily, and get out of here. We might’ve stopped the cops from getting called, but that doesn’t mean they won’t notice something’s wrong here eventually.”

“But the other two were the ones that took the phone call.”

“Okay, look. There’s an easy test. Our powers don’t work on each other, right?”

Jake snapped his fingers. “Good point.” He looked down at Ruby, and said, voice reverberating, “Quack like a duck.”

“Quack.”

“That was your test? She could’ve just faked it!”

“Okay, Ava, if you’re the best at this, you come up with something. What can’t they fake? Even stabbing themselves is gonna be better than letting us kill them!”

“We know one of them has to be a boy. All you have to do is test the fucking girls. Tell them to kill each other. If one of them runs away, or they try anything, we handle it, and we get out of here. We don’t have to draw the moral line at not killing these last two people. Sorta goes against the spirit of the night, y’know?”

“We’re sparing the ones that have nothing to do with it. Just back me up.”

“We really should’ve talked this out away from them,” she said.

“It’ll be fine,” snapped Jake. He untied Cas, Meg, and Ruby.

Just what everybody needed at this stage in the game: cheaters convinced they could still win with their hands on full display. Brought home how young they were, with their youthful exuberance and zeal for proving how clever they were.

Idly, Meg hoped she would have enough time before dying for one last hurrah, a chance to tell them what useless assholes they were, and how much she hated them, even though they’d all met only a few minutes ago. That was fine. She didn’t need to know them. They were family. (Presumably? They were the kids she was supposed to pick up?) All she had to do was tell them how much they disappointed her. She didn’t need to know the first thing about them.

Eventually, they’d learn the lesson. If they survived the night. She felt alright with leaving the specifics of their comeuppance up to fate. It was like a gift basket for her ghost in the future to enjoy. They didn’t know what problems they were making for themselves by killing her. Now, they’d have to rely on Tom. Those poor bastards.

“I’m not letting you fuck this up for us. If anyone tries anything, they’re dead." Ava touched the side of her head. Several of the ghost children appeared, leaning forward as if on a backpack leash. "How about thinking about more than just yourself, yeah? You can either take everyone down with you or save some lives. Make the good choice.”

No one was about to pull a sacrifice play. Ava should’ve saved her breath.

They were boned.

Meg expected a lot of crap from her life. Never going anywhere, always working at a burger joint, probably never quite getting rid of the savannah of pimples over her back no matter what treatment she applied, but she hadn’t, not even in some fever dream, expected it to end so soon, in her least favourite outfit. Beside her least favourite cousin, with all these added extras she didn’t know.

Well, she knew Cassimere over there. The same way you get attached to the person in the booth next to you when you’re both pulling an all-nighter.

Jake pointed at Cas. “You. Strangle the blonde one,” he said, voice doing its Deep Command thing.

It was so dark, the last leg of night, before dawn started busting its groove. The only light was the bug zapper over the lobby door. It was dark enough the shadows took a life and weight of their own. They felt -- sharp. It was the same feeling as standing on a tightrope over a fifty foot drop to broken glass. Nothing but potential energy, focused, with a pointy, nasty end.

Maybe that was the lack of oxygen talking. Cas sure went to town on the strangulation, didn’t she? Must not be on the team of whatever the fuck. Meg wasn’t on the team, either, because she let herself go limp the moment Jake commanded it; no one was on the team. The teams sucked. They didn’t fucking exist.

Ava tch’d. “Fine, whatever. Let’s just kill all of them.”

Cas’ hands burned her neck. Or maybe that was the strangling. Or, maybe, it was the piece of metal against her throat, heating up like some supercharged nickel. Maybe it was that. Though, that one probably wasn’t real, same as the hellish creatures tearing apart the murder ghosts.

Wait -- no. They turned on Jake and Ava, too. Cas let go of her. It was real.

Sam cut free from his ropes. Must have had a knife hidden, to go along with his hidden, all too well-adjusted to splatterhouse scenarios depths. “Call them off,” he yelled, at Meg, as if she could, as if weren’t simply a witness, same as he was, to this new stage in the shitshow of the evening. As if she brought them. Snarling, he added, “You can’t just murder them. Call the shadows off!”

“You keep saying that like it’s an order I can provide. What do you want me to do, exactly? Throw myself at them instead?!” She pulled at Cas’ sleeve, trying to drag her away from the scene. They needed to run, but Cas’ feet wouldn’t budge. She just squawked and evaded Meg’s hold.

“They’re going to come after us next if you don’t do something!”

“Why’s it gotta be me? I. Don’t. Know. How.”

In between the incoherent screams of agony, there was something along the lines of, “She gets the demons of instant death and she doesn’t know how they work?” shouted. By Ava, probably; it was high-pitched. It cut off shortly after.

Everything was chaos. The darkness with claws at the end wrecked everybody (because the teams weren’t a thing.) They even lashed out at Meg -- because they weren’t hers, they were something else entirely, despite what everyone else thought, or might think. If she summoned them, she would’ve done a better job. They wouldn’t have attacked Ruby. Or Sam. They certainly wouldn’t have thrown her across the parking lot like a rag doll.

She slammed into a windshield. Stars were still dancing too much in Meg’s vision for her to see, but she could feel the lack of completely bent every which way of the hood underneath her, which suggested it was a new arrival, post-demolition derby. The hood ornament dug into her shin.

It was Crowley’s car. Inside, there was the leprechaun, as apoplectic as ever. Probably popped a rage boner at the damage to his Audi. Might’ve scratched the surface or something, with her hurtling body. Her arm popped from its socket as Crowley wrenched her off the hood.

“There you are. Not enough to not do as you’re told, eh? Couldn’t have told me you weren’t even trying to find my daughter. What if I’d been at it all night, waiting for some news, worried out of my mind? What’s the matter with you, to not spend so much as a minute picking up the bloody phone?”

“A bit busy,” she croaked. In case he couldn’t tell. 

“You’ve not known busy, darling. When I’m through with you the marrow of your bones are going to flop over, exhausted. Did you really think you were going to get away with pulling one over on me?”

Some distance, back by the lobby, a flare went off, bright enough even Crowley, thirty feet away, squinted. Sam yelled something. She couldn’t make out the words. Maybe he’d moved on to getting that other girl to call off the monsters. Solid plan, really.

“The blazes is that?” Crowley’s hands tightened over her arms. “What, has Lilith been talking to you? You shouldn’t listen to anything she says. The old woman’s barmy. Don’t tell me you lot snuck out one of her books.”

“No,” she said, holding herself small as possible. Anything to get that little bit away. “All the crazy’s far from home field. No one knows where it came from. What do you mean, Gam’s books?”

“Christ on a cracker roll,” he groused. Then his head separated from his body.

The shadows danced around her, like a sandstorm. They didn’t throw her, this time. Almost as if they’d kept her away from the main carnage.

Shit.

Where did everyone else go?

-

“Okay, whatever you’re thinking, can it. Let me in already.”

After a few tries, she found them. On the other side of a locked door. Sam wouldn’t even open it to talk to her; instead, she stood in front of the window, freezing her ass off, watching everyone inside get all cozy. Including the kids that tried to kill them. Everybody but Meg, cleaning their wounds and bandaging themselves.

Cas, at least, sat at the window. She wasn’t a complete cockbite about everything.

“It’s not you. It’s the shadows. Sam says if we break the salt line, they’ll get through. If they were going to hurt you they would have done it already.”

“They threw me into a car,” she retorted, hotly, though she had to admit Cas was right, with her raised eyebrow of ‘that was all they did.’ How did she ever think that chick didn’t have facial expressions? They were just incredibly, painfully minute. Subdued, she added, “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

Ruby joined Cas at the window, careful not to touch. Of the lot of them, she looked the least hurt, with only the marks around her wrists from the ropes. Somehow, her hair was cut in half, jaggedly. It almost looked intentional. It made her face look softer. Meg hated it.

“Either let me in, or get out here, with me. What are you even doing with those kids? I can’t be the only one who remembers they just tried to kill us.”

“It’s not that he thinks you’re controlling them. That much is pretty clear. But, it’s safest if we stay separated. Jake, Lily, Andy -- their stories are all the same. All about a man with yellow eyes giving them bus tickets here, and telling them to find you. Specifically. It’s not adding up to a pretty picture, Meg. Something’s behind all of this. And it seems to favour you.”

“So you expect us all to stand around until daylight?” she complained.

Easy on the sass, there, Ruby. No need to roll your eyes at your elders.

“You have somewhere to go,” she said, practically growling from the emphasis. “There’s somewhere you’d be very welcome. It would probably be in all our best interests if you investigated that.”

Meg rolled on her heels, hands on her hips. There wasn’t anything to investigate. As welcome as she might or might not be at home, Ruby couldn’t ever say she ever wanted to go there.

“Cassowary, you up for a trip outta here? Or are you gonna stay with the rest of these schmucks? Try to remember the one right there pulled your brain’s arm behind its back.”

She blinked. Dubiously? Meg wasn’t sure.

“You are aware Cas is a nickname already, right? Of Castiel. You don't need to make up new ones." 

Sam joined, towering over all of them. The lot of them crammed in the window to talk to her made quite the hilarious picture. “If she wants to go, no one’s stopping her. But neither of you are allowed back.”

That was acceptable. Maybe the quiet children would turn out to be little psychopaths, too. Wouldn’t that show Sam up for thinking he could avoid the violence by holeing everyone up in a room until sunrise.

She led Cas the long way to the car. Best to avoid the sight of Crowley’s corpse. No need to worry her over spilt milk. Besides, she had enough on her plate already. On top of everything that already happened, home wasn’t the destination that Meg had in mind.

No, that would be safe.

They were going to go to the restaurant. It was the only place that made sense for a final confrontation.


	4. Raisin Cain

Short drive as the drive was to Gehenna, it still left too much time for Meg to think about her life. Or, rather, her lack of one. If it was supposed to flash before her eyes, she wanted a refund. It wasn’t much at all to show for herself.

She was the assistant manager at a mildly popular local burger joint. Whoop-de-doo. Place barely kept out of the red. Every day she had to deal with idiots, and at least once, without fail, she had some Kansas person ask where she was from, because her accent never quite left its Northeastern roots. Worse, it wasn’t as if she could complain. If they were asking the same question she heard a thousand times before, they weren’t complaining about their order, or trying to weasel refunds out of her. Useless, invasive questions were the good ones. Those were the ones to treasure.

She made it out of her father’s house, like she promised to do. Even if she only left for a motel half a mile away. That was an accomplishment.

It wasn’t California. It wasn’t even the other side of town.

Still, she was proud for having done it. Taking the plunge killed her inside in ways she hadn’t been aware she was still alive.

But it was worth it. Despite how often she had to go back, to help with Pop Pop, or pick up after Tom, at least she could escape from her family for a few hours; at least she had her own space. A place to call her own, where no one entered. They couldn’t even call her, if Mrs Langston wasn’t around.

Papa hated it. Every time he saw her, it was with some comment about her leaving the nest. He said he worried for her safety. A young woman shouldn’t live out of a motel. A young woman shouldn’t drink so much. She shouldn’t stay out so late.

Shouldn’t be anything like herself, basically.

Sometimes, she worried the only thing he saw in her was a disappointment, a perennial fuck-up continually trying to feed a dollar bill into the vending machine of his approval, when it was out of service, indefinitely, until she could be less fucked in the head. More sophisticated. Straight. A proper girl, instead of a mule.

She was the favoured child, but only in comparison to Tom, and only as long as she was useful.

Wasn’t much of an epithet, though: ‘Did her chores, and her brother’s, even after moving away to escape cleaning up after everybody.’

At some point, she must have been happy. Before the visits to Uncle Crowley’s. Before Papa adopted Tom. When it was the two of them, the girl and the man that pulled her from the burning building.

Maybe she was happy with her birth family. She didn’t remember.

It was all a blur, until some time when she was seven. The first time he took her to work with him.

Mostly, she watched from the booths, but she’d gone behind the counter, curious.

“Does my little pearl want to see how the food’s made?”

She’d grabbed at his apron, pipsqueak that she was. He scooped her up. By herself, she swore she could see fire in every corner. With Papa, even a gas stove wasn’t so scary. She sat on his hip, rapt with the way he could juggle all the different orders, the patties somersaulting with nothing but a flick of his wrist. He always had some showtune or other at the tip of his tongue.

It was magic; as close to it as she’d ever seen.

For all he was sometimes inconsistent and unknowable, strict with contradictory rules, he loved her. It wasn’t his fault -- it was the brain weasels. Whatever family she came from first must have been nothing but loons. Around twelve, she started losing time, again. She wasn’t sure what she did in the blank parts, but the same man that used to sing only ever sighed in disappointment, after that. As hard as she tried to make up for the times she was blank, it wasn’t ever enough.

But he had to love her, still. He had to. She knew it from the way his voice lilted when her called her Pearl.

Even if the murderous little shits were right, and it was all a game, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t unlive the last two decades of her life. It didn’t change how she felt, in the end, if the fire wasn’t natural, if, somehow, it was all due to Papa’s machinations. Whoever her bio family were to her when she was small, they were vague memories, now. She could recall the shape of the goldfish water gun she lost behind the shed better than the sound of her Mother or Father’s voice. They weren’t her family. He was.

She wished that could calm the terror burrowing under her ribs.

If the kids had murder ghosts, if she had tear-limb-from-limb shadows, what did that mean the old man himself had? Fucking actual demons??

-

The plan was simple: Drive to the restaurant. Park the car. Go in, because, if the old man was waiting for her anywhere, it was there. Talk with him. Hope they survived the encounter.

Or, at least, that Cas made it. Meg was doomed. She should’ve guessed as much, the moment she joked her life jumped the shark; it didn’t leave much implication for anything after. Cas could be her valkyrie, or something cheesy like that. Someone had to tell everyone else what a total fucking hero Meg was, even if her plan was shit. Even if it accomplished precisely bupkis, it was still a better plan than holeing up behind a line of salt until morning. It wouldn’t kill them to exaggerate her greatness a little bit, afterwards.

It’d be the least they could do.

-

Focused as she was on the imminent doom, she didn’t realize Cas had said anything.

As soon as she did, she wished she could forget.

The sign on the road had caught Cas’ eye. It was an advertisement for an upscale restaurant in midtown. Paradisio. She murmured that it sounded familiar, that Zachariah mentioned a new menu, recently.

Zachariah. Even in the bible belt, there couldn’t be too many people with that name. Certainly not related to a Castiel.

Shit.

She should’ve guessed as soon as the girl complained about nicknames. Only one family in Lawrence had quite so many -el’s, and, certainly, there were only so many ‘estates’ that adopted their numerous, random lost bastard children of Cracker von Patriarch.

“Your grandfather’s people.” She wished she hadn’t notice Cas say anything, more than anything. Talk about a revelation she didn’t want to have right before her death. “Starts with an S, you couldn’t remember exactly. The name’s Shurley, isn’t it?”

“That sounds about right, yeah. Do you know them?”

_What does that make us? Second cousins half-removed? Half-cousins twice removed?_

What it meant was so long, scarecrow.

“Dean was right,” she said, feeling her heart make the same noises as the gravel underneath the wheels. “If we survive whatever horrific, fire-catapulting shitshow awaits us inside, and we manage to find your family, remind me to get you out of there as quick as possible. You need to get away from those people. Grab everything and run.”

Such a little bird. Cas’ head was tilted so far she could drain her brain out the side. “You know them?” she asked, concerned.

“Distantly. For now, the cliffnotes: they’re assholes. They treated my grandmother very, very poorly, ever since she first moved here from Iran. Whatever reason they have for bringing you to this town wasn’t for your best interests.”

“That’s not true. Without them, I wouldn’t have afforded the medicine I needed.”

“Just. Don’t trust them, alright? People on pedestals are quick to piss on anyone beneath them. Take what you need from them, then vamoose. As fast as you can.” Meg shrugged, shifting the gear into park. Time to step up to the next stage.

When Lilith first founded the restaurant, it was a standalone building, shaped like a screw. She loved the kitschy shapes of the establishments off Rt 66, but then the old building was repossessed, in the 90s. Now, they were just another square of a strip mall, sharing the same, treacherously littered alleyway in the back with the hairdressers and the manicurists.

It was worse than usual. Someone had a rave with all the cardboard boxes, or something.

Meg held out her hand. “Hey.” God, it was absurd how shy she felt. She didn’t want another case of Cas jumping away from her. It felt worse than when a cat ran away. “I know you hate touch, but could you take my hand? I’d rather not have to worry some bucket’s gonna be the spoonful of water you trip and die over.”

Cas blinked at her, owlish.

“Just -- just take my hand, okay?” Meg blushed. This was mortifying. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

Gingerly, she took Meg’s fingers. “Not seeing where the water factors in. But, if you wanted to hold my hand, all you had to do was ask. It’s not that I hate being touched. It’s being grabbed without warning. Someone likes cake, that doesn’t mean they’re going to say ‘thank you’ at having a slice of Red Velvet launched at their face. Y’know?” She thought for a moment, and nodded, to some silent point in her head. “Well, okay. It’s more complicated than that. But we can deal with it if we’re still alive after this. Lead the way.”

Meg led. Except, Cas pulled Meg back, as she started took the steps to lead them.

“Actually. One last thing,” she added, in a quiet rush. Cas’ hair brushed against her. Dry lips pressed against her cheek, quick and light. “In case we don’t make it. It was nice to meet you.”

The laugh escaped her, the way dredging burns into the oil. “Yeah,” said Meg. “It was nice to meet you too, Cassidy.”

It changed nothing. She wanted it to mean everything. If only they weren’t in some two-bit alley, surrounded by moldy cardboard. Of course, she’d find the fire in her belly the night it all stopped mattering. She didn’t need California, or to get out of Lawrence.

She wanted to stay in that alley forever, holding the weird girl’s hand.

-

Though she wasn’t sure what advantage going through the back might provide, it felt safer than busting through the main entrance. As the both of them stumbled through the kitchen, and its many stabby, messy deathtraps -- left thanks to Tom, who never cleaned up when it was his closing shift -- she regretted the decision. They might as well have screamed at the top of their lungs “We’re here!”

It was the literal opposite of a stealth entrance. And, sure enough, there were steps approaching them on the tile, meeting them halfway.

“Cute, you two. Just a touch childish, though don’t you think?”

There he was. Papa Azazel al-Shaitan, standing in the dark with a giant wool coat, silhouetted against the neon letters of Gehenna Eatery, his eyes burning yellow.

Unreal. A part of her expected the joint to be empty, for everything to be one giant joke, somehow or other. Not for her father to smile, crooked like he didn’t remember how, and fold his hands together, all but ruffling his feathers.

“Then again,” he said, light, “You always were a bit immature, weren’t you, dear? Never quite solved growing up. At least you did better than your brother.”

“What’s wrong with you? How could you do that to your own children?” Cas let go of her hand, stepped forward; because, apparently, she thought she could intimidate the man. It swelled Meg’s heart as much as it terrified her. Voice deep, she growled, “You’re not going to hurt Meg.”

Nice gesture. Pointless as hell, but nice.

They were separated, thrown through the kitchen; the handle of the refrigerator dug into her back. Cas clattered over the counter, into the dining area. By the sound of it, she broke a few tables. Hopefully that was all that had broken. Good way to get your neck snapped, that.

“Never intended to,” he quipped.

“Wait,” said Cas, both muffled and stupefied.

“The hell?” added Meg.

That was not what either of them expected him to say. Villainous lies were generally more subtle than ‘up is down.’

His voice was a light, teasing counterpoint to the flint of his face, as he sauntered forward to Meg, into her personal bubble. “Furthermore. You say not to hurt her, but what does that mean? It’s such a broad term. I simply cannot be held accountable for every scrap and boo-boo. With ‘hurt’, it’s the same culpability, whether I were to kick her, or if she were to trip over my foot. The case is the latter. It’s not my fault if someone’s clumsy, or an idiot, or if they misuse the gifts that I gave them. They hurt themselves. Whatever blame you want to place on me, it would be no different than cursing a hurricane from the eye of the storm, and levying it for damages. What use would that be?”

He tapped the pendant on Meg’s neck, thoughtful.

“Then again, that is the human condition. You lot always feel the need to bemoan the powers above, don’t you?”

Meg scoffed. “Delusions of grandeur much? You’re human, powers or no.”

“Stupid, stupid child. I’m not the human. Daddy was.”

He was much too close. She couldn’t breathe any air but his, rank and sulphurous.

She shivered. Her knees might’ve buckled underneath her, if it weren’t for being held against a refrigerator by psychic powers. Small victories, right? She couldn’t hope for much else.

“So, what, you took my dad like a puppet? Were the ladies running too fast from your ugly mug?”

“Oh, no. Nothing of the kind. It’s a bit of a small, technical point, really. For whatever reason, the big man in the sky thought it would be a swell idea to have a physical world. Plants, animals. all that business. We were around before all that. So we need -- well, we need you. Humans. Otherwise, we’re left unable to smell the roses or count the fishes. Funny system, isn’t it? He built one big laugh of a universe.”

Just as hilarious as being stuck listening to Mr Motormouth.

“Zazzles here said yes to me, and let me take him. I gave him everything he wanted. More than he’d dreamt of. I never laid a finger on him. He died naturally, of a heart attack, and now his body is mine, to do with as I please. A fair trade, don’t you think?”

“You done yet, or do you want to flap your mouth some more?”

She hoped Cas was using the time to escape.

The hands being on her situation kept up. The demon rested them on her shoulders, giving off the air of inspecting her, deciding her value. She threw her head to the side, smirking. “See something you like?” The bravado felt better than paying too close attention to the details of the thing, to worrying at how she hadn’t heard any movement or words from Cas.

The demon laughed. At least somebody was having fun. “It’s not becoming to make deals with devils, weren’t you aware?”

“My mistake. Let me wait until you tell me whatever poor choices there are for me to pick between. It’s only seemly if I sit here, with my hands up my ass, until you make the move.”

This was the culmination of the entire night. She couldn’t fathom what any of this had to do with the children, or the shadows.

And, in reply, he just spout off another non sequitur. “Do you know why you’ve never been happy?” he asked, completely serious. Asking the hard hitting questions. Obviously, that was a more important issue than literally any other thing.

“It’s not just you. No need to fret about what an escapist, lousy thing you were. Your daddy was the same. Nothing could ever make him happy. There’s a hole in your hearts, one that can’t be filled by drink, or fornication, or petty vengeance. All you could ever do was distract yourselves. All of you, dating back to the first,” he said, cradling her chin. “Any one of your bloodline needs me. You were created to be one half of a whole. God didn’t just play a joke on his angels. It’s on you, too. You’ll never be happy without me.”

Finally, it clicked. She was so stupid to have thought of the mastermind of her troubles as such a fear. She knew his type. He could blow on and on about his angelic heritage, being extrahuman, but she was well-practiced with what he was, ultimately. Nothing different than the unruly customers she dealt with on the daily.

She couldn’t fix everything. Hell, she couldn’t fix most things. But in that moment, she knew what she had to do, and, for the first time, had some idea of how to accomplish it.

He wanted to be heard. Obviously. He couldn’t shut up.

She just had to play along with the scene. Smile, nod, add in the proper murmurs of assent; lather, rinse, repeat. A literal approval stamp from Satan didn’t change the nature of egotists, it turned out.

She couldn’t save anyone. Not even herself. But she could fix things.

That was all she was ever good for, in the end. No one ever asked her for their help because she was so skilled, or knowledgeable. It was because she was available.

She just hoped they’d make up something better than ‘useful’ for her tombstone.

“Is that it? You wanted me. There wasn’t ever a contest. It was rigged from the start. Well, you have me. No need to carry on any further. Let’s deal.”

The demon made a show on consideration, all hmm’s and eyes casting about. Not good enough, guy. Just admit the facts. They’re obvious.

“What does your friend have to say about this?” he called to the side. “Don’t be shy. Share with the class, friend.”

A pot clattered. “Fuck you,” she rasped.

Good to know Cas hadn’t died, at least.

“Feel free to join in soon as you’re able to walk,” he called, finally --bless-- removing his mitts from Meg, including the psychic ones.

Meg stumbled. Useless legs.

“You’re not wrong. But, you’re not right, either. The others still have important roles. They’ll return later. I do need something unique from you, though. None of the others could be my vessel. Say yes, and the night will be over. I’ll turn in until the end of your days. You’ll never know want or desperation again. As I’ve helped Azazel, I’ll help you. When you die, your body will be mine, to use as I see fit. Are the terms acceptable?”

They weren’t. But, they didn’t need to be. All she was interested in was: “It ends? No more strange people trying to kill each other, or attempts on Cas’ life, or mine?”

“It ends.” He tucked strands of hair behind her ear, and tutted, “Don’t be so sour. Your face will freeze like that.”

“I hope it does,” she snapped, fighting to keep the rein on her temper. He could have her grotesque, frozen face. It was just desserts. Let him suffer in whatever minute way she could make happen. She breathed, deep. Time to take the plunge.

As far as damage control went, she’d done worse, hadn’t she? No one else died. All she had to do was sell her soul. It was hers to lose. If she was the only one getting hurt, it wasn’t so bad. She was used to it. It barely registered as a loss.

"Yes."


	5. BLZBB

There wasn’t a flash, or a bang. Nothing started ringing. There wasn’t a click, inside her head or outside. In a moment faster than a blink, she became something More. It was so overwhelming that she only barely registered that she had fallen to the floor, under the weight of her father’s corpse, because her senses were far too busy, firing alight with everything new to take in. It started with the crackle under her skin, and it didn’t stop; it expanded further and further. There were the daeva, hanging off the walls. She knew their name. They weren’t shadows. That was all that mortals could see of them. They were monsters older than Creation, from when the world was new, when everything was darkness. Outside, guarding the door, were a pair of hellhounds. Her pets. She remembered how it felt to be sealed away, and her nose swore she could smell the dust at Golgotha.

She remembered the night she followed Zazzles on his little trip to Andover, to the bank that foreclosed on Lilith’s restaurant. Naturally, that was a death sentence; she was summoned for a misfortune, and she’d deliver. They should not have touched what was hers.

They’d suffer, down to their children’s children.

Except, one of them caught her eye, the older of two sisters. A pudgy, wide-eyed thing, no more than six, noticed her for a second, asked what she was. Precocious. She decided the little girl could live.

She’d always had a scent for talent. The two of them could do some amazing things together.

Azazel complained, at first, but took to fatherhood well.

That was what he did. Complain, and poke holes in her plans. He tried to sabotage her countless times simply to feel as if he had some control over her. He didn’t, but that was what she liked about him. She found his mouthiness endearing, though she’d never admit it out loud. Immortality benefited from a bit of spice every now and then.

Sometimes, in the furthest corners of her heart, she thought to herself that maybe the ineffable plan wasn’t so outrageous after all; maybe she enjoyed having vessels.

The centuries locked in darkness changed her. She hated humans, before. But now -- now she hated being alone, more than anything. It’s why she needed the girl. She had such plans for her, and the children like her. She’d waited so long.

She was the demon Azazel, the fallen angel of the desert.

That wasn’t right.

She wasn’t the demon. He was.

They weren’t one, no matter what he said, with his whispers from his soul to hers. It took time to find the distinction, but, she started with that buzzing of flies in her heart. That was him. He was the one saying that she was not her own, that she was now who she was always meant to be. His. Him. They were one, now. They were whole.

He could keep saying it for a million years. Didn’t make it true.

The idea was a complete riot. As if she could be anyone but herself. A river didn’t question its river-ness if its name changed, or if its course varied, or even if it wasn’t made of water, anymore. It never stopped being a river.

She wasn’t Meg Masters, or Magdalene al-Shaitan, or any name. Who she was wasn’t a set point. It was the being and the becoming. The having been. It was the time she wrote a sonnet for Charlie, even though she hated poetry, because of the way the girl brightened when she talked about the beauty of words strung together. How, for years, she woke up screaming from half-remembered nightmares. When she stole Mrs Tran’s bobblehead of Walker Texas Ranger and hid it Kevin’s closet, to cheer him up when his parents divorced. Whoever she was in the future would still be Future Meg, no matter who she was.

Cas pulled the corpse off her. She looked more like hell than Meg felt, covered in grease and dirt, almost as if she dragged herself the entire way over.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she snarled.

“Stopped everything, didn’t it?” Meg rolled her eyes, sunk her head back against the tile. “Neither of us died.”

“There was no reason to sacrifice yourself.”

Stop glaring, Casserole. Wasn’t as if she sold her soul. The thing was still hers. Mostly. Technically.

“It wasn’t a sacrifice,” she snapped. How could the other girl bother questioning her, when minutes before they’d had no options whatsoever for making it out in one piece? Now, they had the freedom to argue, and for hindsight to kick in.

Cas was failing her duties to tell the world what a hero Meg was.

Maybe she should have explained that she’d had been counting on Cas for that, for after the end. She couldn’t really fail at duties she was never told about and never agreed to. (Meg wasn’t her dad.)

A few moments passed. Eventually, Cas admitted, “I just want you to be okay,” as miserable as if she were in mourning.

It was more than Meg could handle. Being okay had never been on the table, not for a single moment. Cas might as well have hoped they would become unicorns. She turned, the floor cold against her cheek, and said, as calmly as she could, “I understand. But everything’s fine, okay? As close as we’re going to get. Now, all we need to do is get this corpse into the car of the recently murdered guy, and hope we can make it to the morning without any more surprises.”

-

Morning came, without police at the door, or hellish creatures from left field. The morning after that came as well, as uneventfully as the first, and after that, ad nauseum, until the weeks piled one on top of the other, without a single second shoe in sight.

Cas’ legs were broken. She decided to stay in town until they were healed. At Meg’s insistence, she moved out of the Shurley residence, at least; to Meg’s bemusement, Cas thought even the al-Shaitan living room was a better option than a motel. Kept waiting for the ghosts to pop up, as irrational as it was, she explained. She couldn’t rest.

Meg moved home, in solidarity with Cas.

Is what she said for the party line. In reality, she moved back because her motel room was destroyed, the house’s mortgage had already been paid in full, and she deserved the house more than Tom did. Since she was now the owner of Gehenna Eatery, the location was beneficial, too. She didn’t need a car to get to work. The stripmall was less than a ¼ mile away. Until she could afford a new car, she could walk.

A close eye on expenses was important. She had Cas to account for as well, now.

Sometimes, everything turned static. Sometimes, she couldn't hear anything over the buzzing. She woke, gasping, from dreams of glass deserts under harvest moons, where the ground broke into a pillars of fire. Her fingers brimmed with electricity, soot-stained. Wings rustled behind her, frantic; she developed an unassaugeable itch between her shoulders.

It wasn't anything she couldn't handle, though.

She couldn’t fix anything. But she’d be damned if she didn’t control the damage.

-

"This seat taken?"

"It's never taken. It's never going to be taken. You don't have any other friends. The day it's taken, the angels will part the heavens and slaughter every single person alive. It’ll be the End Times. If this seat is taken, you'll have bigger problems."

Meg dumped all the food, her keys, and her purse on to the counter, where the time blinkered at her, several hours behind. Minutes were still accurate, supposedly. Perfect. She made it before the Dr Sexy marathon started.

"Shut up and take your food, you literal toothbrush." She handed over the drink, first, then the wrapped burger. A bit shy, she said, "Today's special: the BLZBB. Bacon Lettuce Zesty Bacon Burger. Any opinions?"

On the inside, she felt shy. On the outside, she tried to channel as much condescension as possible; the positive thinking crowd would be pleased, if they counted ‘envision yourself as someone who doesn’t need another person’s approval’ as a valid endpoint for what to imagine yourself as. She wasn’t sure if it worked. She hoped it did. Last thing she needed was Cas getting the idea Meg wanted her to like her ideas, or something ridiculous.

Her focus was wasted. Cas never so much as looked at her, instead focused on unwrapping the burger slowly and methodically. "Does it need so much bacon?” she asked, clearly of the opinion the answer was ‘no.’.

"Had to. Couldn't think of a word for the second 'b.' Look, the strips are latticed."

She wasn’t impressed. "Tastes the same as yesterday’s. You should probably branch out some more.” After a few more bites: "Does 'zesty' usually make your tongue numb?"

"Not usually, no," with a sigh, Meg picked the burger out of the girl's hand, switching it out for the milkshake. "Try to wash it down. New flavour. Strawberry-pecan-mint."

"That sounds awful." Yet, Cas drank it, tilting her head, squinting. As if she were judging each particle for the balance of strawberry mintiness. Or, as if it insulted not only her palate, but her, her mother, and her siblings. In binary code. Surly bit of product, that milkshake.

She kept drinking it, at least.

Might as well take the small victories. She didn’t have to watch Cas eat the burger via tearing it into infinitesimal pieces. Instead, there was a run to the kitchen with her name on it in future, for a mozzarella stick.

That was the future’s problem. Not hers.

About the same as yesterday wasn’t a loss, she supposed. If she couldn’t find a better flavour within a week, she’d ask Cain, with his granola, kombucha-mother ways, and then Casey, with her tendency to deep fry anything, and hope that the median between their clashing food styles would provide the framework for something both palatable and accessible, and, most pertinent of all, good enough to advertise for the restaurant’s ‘new owner’ promotion.

She never cared, before, and at first, becoming the owner hadn’t been enough to convince her heart to change. It was finding her father’s books. Or rather, the lack of them. Turned out that the past few years of only brushing past the red by the skin of their teeth hadn’t been bouts of luck. They were because of the whole black magic charade of her father’s. Something about it made her want to show him up, to prove the business could stay solvent without supernatural influence, or killing people when convenient.

She never expected herself to want to stay around, let alone after something as catastrophic as the night from Hell.

She expected to feel different. Changed. Broken. Instead, she wasn’t sure she felt anything at all. Even the relationship struck between her and Cas --despite Tom’s mental images that he oh so helpfully shared with the class-- felt paper thin, somehow. Ready to fall apart into dust.

The melodrama of the sentiment bothered her. She’d never considered herself one for brooding thoughts about the emotional weight of situations, before. The future came, and when it did, she dealt with it. She tried not to think too deeply about such things.

Absently, she bit the BLZBB.

Cas was right. It was bland. Who knew bacon could only carry something so far?

Tragically, the latticed bacon couldn’t save the whole. Somewhat of a waste of time, really, with the way it was covered by the bun. It didn’t need a visual element no one saw.

“Coming through.” She arranged herself in the space left on the couch, careful not to bump Cas’ legs, or press against her; she still found the other girl’s insistence on personal space more of a bother than not, but they compromised. One tap was green, two taps yellow, three taps red. On red days she had to find her own chair.

Two taps. Their position was fine, momentarily.

Maybe she could design a burrito burger, to solve the second B. That was different, at least. Maybe it could go places. She’d test the idea out with tomorrow’s lunch.

They settled in for the marathon. Cautious, Meg tipped her foot toward Cas’ lap.

(One tap.)

The other foot followed. Cas pet at her legs, eyes glued to the screen.

Nothing was solved. She might’ve gotten control of her life, but she sold her soul to do it. She knew, intellectually, that the sword dangling over her head was a laser-guided missile; she knew, too, that someday Cas had to go home, wherever that was for her.

They couldn’t keep their bubble forever.

It was a nice bubble, though. The best one.

She just wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.


End file.
